Wow I managed to get 6 or 7 hours to play this weekend and you guys are right.. the AI must have had bad luck in my first 1.19 game.. this time I gave it a large world, hard AI and med advantage and I got wasted before turn 100!! Started pretty good but soon run into two races and soon war broke out and on one border my entire fleet was destroyed by an AI battlegroup of 12 LCs armed with level 5 beams and POINTDEFENSE!! most of my ship swere missile boats (yeah I still tried to do my missile dance as soon as I realized the AI fleet is much bigger than mine), none of my missiles could get through their screen of defense. So I decided to build a couple of colonizers, load up my transports with population and escorted by what's left of my fleet... it was so cool it was like playing homeworld on a strategic level
. then.. I put em all in one group and started the run.. as soon as I entered a new warp point boom.. a minefield!! half the ship got blown up the rest crippled... the AI fleet caught up with me and that's it.
now that was FUN!!
my only regret now is that i haven't seen any fighter vs fighter combat.. I did run into a planet defended by 20 fighters but never saw them in carrier based operations.